Idaho semi-weekly world. [volume] (Idaho City, Idaho Territory) 1875-1908, 1887-05-10
BUILDINGS THATARE UNLuCKY.
Houses Noted for Fires, Suicides, and
Other Calamities

Other Calamities.
81 am not supersttous, as general
rule, said Liberty street real estate
dealer, as he cruised about the ex-
change looking for unwary buyers the
other day, but in the course of twenty
years experience in renting and selling
property in New York | have noticed
things that seem impossible to explain
except by luck or fate. There are some
buildings in this city which, for no APP
parent cause, are sure to make trouble
for their owners and tenants as the sun
is to shine. No amount of care or
prudence will make them profitable,
while buildings right next to them,
which are neglected by owners and
abused by tenants, will be lucky all the
Time. There is building on Church
street where suicide has occurred
once in every twenty months for years.
1t Is a good building, light, well con-
structed, desirable in every way, but
Won can't get half the rents for that as
YOU can in the next bu ding. because it
has the reputation of being what people
who use slang call a .'hoodoo," and
every tenant who goes into it is haunt
ed by the fear that he is going to fail
or be burned out or loose his mother-in-
law. It's all on account of these sui
cides. They have given it bad name
and that a thousand times harder to
drive out OF a house than rats.
| / know a tcnement-house on She East
| side.that is given over to fires. The
landlord has made the most extraordin-
airy efforts to prevent them, hired
watchmen, put in tire-prooting, auto
matte alarms, kept the police on the
alert. but fires are the rule in that
house, and now YOU can scarcely hire
people TO live in it. 1t isn't incendiar-
ism. suppose it's what cool scientific
people would call mere coincidence, but
most people would say it was luck.
The house is 'hoodooed' in the minds
of tenants anyway.
There are some houses which none
but undesirable tenants will occupy in
spite of everything you can do.
know a man who recently came into
possession of fine building not {
stones throw from this exchange which
had been given up to rag lofts in spite
of the efforts of the former owner tC
get them out. He spent more than
SO. 600 in fixing up the building, made
over the rooms into handsome offices
put in an elevator, and made the rents
low. The building is in good locality
for oflice-renters, and in short time i
was full of desirable tenants. Thu
) man congratulated himself on his fore
oht and wisdom. In Il mouth one
tenant failed, another skipped to Cana
ia, another eloped with the landladv
The sicns came down, the people wen
out, and in n year the rag lofts Were
back again, l don't know how to ex
plain it, but you couldn't make none,
out of that building to save your life
On the next corner was building no
Is half as rood or desirable in any way
= and the owner was clearing more THAI
$50. 900 year from it.
: Zone of the most expensive build
l. mos on lower Broadway is supposed Il
{ be .hoodooed, by the fact that part
Il the land it stands on is owned by a
Il old miser, who won't sell. but exact
: an enormous rate for the lease. Any
Il WAY. there are more failures IN tina
Il building than in any other on the street
o tenants are continually turning out
q be defaulters, the elevator is contlr
: ually falling on somebody, people ar
l. always tumbling downstairs an
breaking thelr limbs, children dro
/ ont of the windows, signs slip trol
: their places, the steam-heating app"r'
: tus is perpetually out of order an
the owner has worried himself to
d aesbless bone. o-Nc,0 IorE Mail an